Beauty and the Beast Remake to Feature Disney’s First Gay Storyline

The live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast is getting huge press these days for one reason — it will feature Disney’s first ever gay storyline.

Remember LeFou, the manservant to the awful Gaston who is in love with Belle? Well, in this upcoming remake, LeFou, played by Josh Gad, will grapple with his own sexuality and his feelings about Gaston.

Director Bill Condon told Attitude in an interview: “LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston.”

“It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. It is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie,” he added.

Gad who plays LeFou said this about the added gay storyline: “What was most important to me was taking a character that is wonderful and so iconic, but is defined by cartoon conceits in the (original) movie… and expanding on that, giving him dimension, making him human.”

Sounds awesome, right? Though there have been gay storylines in films and TV before, this is an important step for Disney, which generally makes family-friendly movies, an area of media that is still behind in representing the LGBT community.

As Attitude editor-in-chief Matt Cain said, “By representing same-sex attraction in this short but explicitly gay scene, the studio is sending out a message that this is normal and natural – and this is a message that will be heard in every country of the world, even countries where it’s still socially unacceptable or even illegal to be gay,” he said.